We've All Got Baggage
by wingsoverthewater
Summary: Oneshot drabble. We've all got baggage. Please R&R. Rated for safety.


A/N: Hello, my dear readers! Here's a new drabbleish oneshot, based on the concept that we all have baggage from childhood, that shape our personalities. It's slightly alternate universe, because it's sorta post-RENT, but Angel lives! :D I don't like how Collins' and Mimi's vignette things came out, but I love how Mark's and Maureen's came out. So enjoy. Don't forget to R&R! ;D

PS: I just realized that in Regret, Mimi's sister Alicia is about twelve years older. Here she's younger. Ignore that, they're different universes even though Roger's sorta branches off the concept of his Regret chapter.

Disclaimer: Don't own

_**Baggage**_

MARK: The Watcher

I have always been a hider. When I was young, I hid from the bullies who chased me around the schoolyard and blacked my eyes because I was a nerd. I hid my work from the teachers, afraid that they'd point out a mistake. When I got older, I learned to hide behind a more stable facade, my camera. When you're behind the camera, it's an excuse to stay out of the limelight. I don't know how Maureen does it- life on the stage.

I'm afraid of being center stage. The spotlight highlights your imperfections. Whenever I'm in the spotlight, people laugh because I do something stupid and dorky. I'm jealous of Roger because everything he does is effortless, and people laugh because it's funny and cool. I'm tired of being laughed at.

When I'm the watcher, I can laugh. No one notices, because I'm just one of many watching.

MAUREEN: Invisible

When I was growing up, I was invisible. My parents never spent any time with me. When I first noticed it, I was like, "Oh, they're busy." They were busy for the next many years. The thing I wanted the most wasn't toys or clothes. It was for someone to pay attention to me. I was always showered with materials, not love. It was awful.

Maybe it was because I was the youngest. Maybe they were tired of raising kids. I don't know.

I thought maybe Mommy and Daddy would pay attention to me if I got good grades and was in the play at school and stuff. But noooo, they were too busy to read my report cards and see the plays. They were too busy to do anything with me. I was just a facade, an appearance. Who cared if the Johnsons treated their daughter well? As long as I looked like a gold-medal girl.

Theater class at school opened me up. I learned that if I screamed and made everything chaotic, Mom and Dad did notice me. Maybe not in a good way, but they did. I know I got in trouble a lot, but for once I felt seen.

I had to keep doing it. Otherwise I felt like I would fade away, back to invisibility. Fade back to the fake, facade me. When people noticed me, it reminded me that I was still here.

JOANNE: Picking up the Wreckage

When I was a kid, earthquakes scared the living crap out of me. Why? Because it reminded me that not everything is stable. I never invest in the stock market. Why? It's not a constant. Any day it might change.

I hate change. It's so...unwieldy. I hate when Maureen does crazy things, because I can't predict what's next, and it scares me. I like to be driving the car that is my life, knowing where I'm going. I became a lawyer because...this is America. You can sue people for existing, if you have the money (Just don't expect me to take your case.) As long as there are people, I'll have a job. That comforts me. I'm not like a salesperson at a big company, where one day business is booming and the next you're fired.

All I really want out of life is stability and calm. I know my life is stable and quakeproof, because that's how I've built myself, my life. But I don't want to live in a world where everyone and everything is crumbling and falling to pieces at my feet, and I'm left to pick up the wreckage.

COLLINS: Being Normal

My first bad memory, ever, is in kindergarten. We were coloring pictures of a pumpkin and a ghost for Halloween. I made my pumpkin blue and my sky orange, just because I wanted to. Then my Nazi teacher came over. "Tommy, that's WRONG. Pumpkins aren't blue, and the sky is not orange. The sky is blue, and pumpkins are orange. Here, take a new coloring sheet."

I hated that. I liked my blue pumpkin! I hate conforming. Who says I have to be a cow, following the herd?

I always wondered why society was made into cows. When I was in fifth grade, I realized where all the "this is right, this is wrong" came from. It came from the authority. Police, teachers, et cetera. And I hated it. I did everything I could to rebel, but eventually realized that there was no way I could erase every conformist Nazi in the world. The only thing that can really do that is my vodka.

I'm a teacher because I want to be the antithesis of Ms. Pumpkins are Orange, Skies Are Blue Nazi Kindergarten Teacher. I want my kids to think outside the lines.

I'm tired of conforming. I'm tired of being "normal".

ANGEL: A Disappointment

My dad was so happy when he found he was going to have a son. He already had three daughters, and he wanted a boy he could play baseball, watch the football game, and do "guy things" with. What father doesn't want a son who looks up to him and wants to be just like Papa?

I wasn't that kid. I was never Papa's boy. I'd rather be drawing or talking to my sisters than to be playing sports. I had notebooks filled with drawings praised by the whole school, but that didn't mean a dog's fart to my father. He wanted a sporty, gold-medal son. It sounds better to say "My son is the starting quarterback of the high school football team" than to say "My son is an artist."

I was always a disappointment. You should have heard them when I told them I was gay. Mama was okay...Papa wasn't.

"You are not gay. I did not raise you, feed you, clothe you for all these years to raise a FAIRY FAGGOT OF A SON! What did I do wrong?"

I felt so awful. I stayed as far away as possible from Papa after that. My parents didn't know that I had AIDS. They didn't know where I went when I moved, except that I was in New York. And I definitely was not about to tell them that...I felt more comfortable in girls' clothes. My parents didn't deserve to raise...a kid like me. I always felt guilty for foisting myself on Mama and Papa.

My father died less than a year after I came out to them. And I know it was my fault. He was so disappointed in me. Why do I have to be who I am?

(A/N: Angel's papa, you suck.)

ROGER: It Hurts

I'm a hypocrite. When I was little, I reprimanded Mark for being so boring, but I was the one who sat around at home on weekends watching documentaries I didn't understand on TV and eating whole-grain toast.

And just a few months ago, I screamed at Mark that he was in love with his work, hides in his work. It's true. But I hide too. I hide in my music, hide behind my guitar. My guitar is my shield from the crap in the world. Me and Mark, we'll always be the same like that. My guitar does what his camera does- it hides us from the pain and shit of the world.

As Collins would say, the world's evils.

I hide from all that crap because it's easier. It's easier than bearing the pain and suckiness of it all. I'm not lazy, I just take the path with less pain. I run from the pain.

I don't want to die. I'm just freaking scared that it's going to hurt, and then I'm going to hell. Where God knows it's not gonna be comfortable.

I've experienced too much of "the world's evils" and crap already. I don't want anymore. My music, my work, my guitar keeps it away. It just hurts too much to keep enduring.

MIMI: Point of No Return

I was the oldest of the Marquez girls. Me, Alicia (five years younger), Lupe (eight years younger). And Mama. I hated being at home, because when I was at home, Papa would always be there, screaming at us, throwing stuff, hitting us.

When I was sixteen, I ran away. I came to New York, because Mama always wanted to go to New York, but Papa refused. It was a place of filth and squalor and poverty, he said. I figured, correctly, that there was no place as filthy and poor as our house.

The problem? When I ran away, I could not bring Mama, Alicia, and Lupe with me. It took me months to get money for my ticket. I never could have taken them with me.

I can't contact them, as we never had a phone. I sent letters, but there was no reply.

I went to Spain a month ago, back to my neighborhood. It looked so different- the place had been industrialized. It looks like New York now. I asked the people who worked around there about my family. But no one knew what I was talking about.

I miss Mama. I feel like I abandoned my sisters and mother. For all I know, Alicia, Lupe, and Mama might be dead. And I ran, ran just like Roger did. Ran away because I was afraid to watch them be hurt and die. Unlike Roger, I can't go back. I'll never know if my little sisters and my mama are okay. I'd go home, but there's no "there" there anymore.

A/N: So. What did you think?

Of my school's version of RENT, as of Friday we were just finished with blocking Light My Candle with scripts. We're not nitpicky about being on tune and stuff, as long as we block it. After all, we have another five and a half months before we actually put the play on...


End file.
